Manchester United PLC v Office of Fair Trading

Summary of appeal published on 8 October 2003. A joint case management conference was held on 23 October 2003 to deal with the proceedings involving Umbro Holdings Ltd, Manchester United, Allsports Ltd and JJB Sports PLC (the replica sports kit cases”) at which the Tribunal refused permission for SportsWorld International to intervene.

On 18 November 2003 the President issued an Order relating to the partial lifting of confidentiality in respect of certain material in the OFT’s decision. A further joint case management conference took place on 12 December 2003 in respect of all the replica football kit cases.

A further case management conference took place on 22 January 2004 followed by a pre-trial review on 12 February 2004. The final hearing relating to the issue of liability in cases 1021/1/1/03 and 1022/1/1/03 commenced on 8 March 2004 and finished three weeks later. During this hearing rulings relating to confidentiality and disclosure were handed down.

The final hearing relating to the issue of Manchester United's penalty was stayed until judgment on the issue of liability in cases 1021/1/1/03 and 1022/1/1/03 had been handed down. That judgment was handed down on 1 October 2004.

A further case management conference took place on 5 November 2004 at which the final hearing relating to the issue of the penalty in cases 1019/1/1/03 to 1022/1/1/03 was set down for the week commencing 17 January 2005. That hearing took place on 17, 18, 19 and 20 January 2005. The Tribunal's Judgment in relation to penalty was handed down on 19 May 2005.

A hearing took place on 14 July 2005 to consider applications for costs and permission to appeal. The Tribunal handed down its rulings on those applications on 15 July 2005.